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One of those days today. It was our family Thanksgiving/birthday dinner. Alan is working on the holiday itself, and we have no guests to invite to an evening feast, and with Kate now a vegetarian, it seems silly to make a turkey for two people. So it’ll likely be grilled cheese sandwiches and a couple of movies on Thursday. As the sole cook and baker, I can tell you it was a real shitshow. Every pot boiled over. I neglected to add baking soda to the cake, and the resulting pair of rock-like layers had to be pitched. The ensuing mess was epic — I think I did dishes five times — but it finally wobbled from the kitchen to the table. Fat roast chicken, mashed potatoes, Asian green beans and a big side of mac and cheese (for the vegetarian). And a lopsided, but homemade, birthday cake.

Plus a bottle of champagne. You really can’t wreck a dinner utterly and completely if there’s champagne. That might be the only smart call I made.

And now it’s Sunday night. The president-elect was up at 6 a.m., tweeting about “Hamilton” and “Saturday Night Live.”

I watched parts of @nbcsnl Saturday Night Live last night. It is a totally one-sided, biased show – nothing funny at all. Equal time for us?

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64 responses to “Leftover mashed potatoes.”

Someone tweeted something to the effect that even Lincoln didn’t whine this much after a bad theater experience.

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brian stouder said on November 20, 2016 at 8:44 pm

Four years go by in a snap…or, I’m just hoping it’s a snap, and not a flash!

I raked the backyard; big piles/tarp/drag drag drag to the front; repeat.

Pammy got the Christmas lights up on the gutter, and got the Christmas tree decorated*, and I got gasoline for $1.75/gallon at Sam’s (my day would keel over, if he were alive to hear anyone happily comment about scoring $1.75/gallon! I think he lived long enough to be irritated when gas got above 1.25/gallon!)

Speaking of my dad (and mom) they were both avid bridge players, back in the day. I’m sure by now they’d have a joke, involving a no-trump bid, and ‘dummy’ – but I’ve no idea how that game works!

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brian stouder said on November 20, 2016 at 8:46 pm

*forgot the asterisk. Pammy does the tree, etc., and maintains artistic control in any case. My role was to drag things from storage to her designated spots, and then get out of the way – which I most certainly did do!

The really dark days were the EIGHT years with Ronald Reagan, then we got a break when Pappy Bush only stood for one term and yielded to a nice young man from , as my dad called it, phonetically, “R- Kansas”. Perhaps my view was altered from the norm as I was deep into international unionism, but from my perch I saw a deeply divided and hurt US populace under Ronald Reagan, who was the worst ever until that rat bastard Bush43 was installed by SCOTUS.
Trump and Reagan incite and incited similar-type hate, as neither was fit to be POTUS, but RR was governor of California at least, even as he did rule that state like a modern day dictator. To play off Brian’s theme, Trump’s a wild card. He’ll be different, staying in New York more than D.C., pussy-grabbing right along when he is forced to be at 1600 Penna Ave., as his great companion has already said “fuck that shit…I and Baron are staying in New York!” Which is true and not a Green Acres theme-steal, although Mrs. Trump has said she may join Donald “in the late spring” in D.C.

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Sherri said on November 21, 2016 at 2:29 am

I’ll be having Thanksgiving dinner with the CTO of Tableau, so I’m looking forward to asking him how to get some of that Soros money to become a professional protestor.

Same here, Hattie. The Ryan Medicare plan has me losing sleep. My husband & I have both had jobs since we were teens but both are in social service type positions that don’t pay great. We’ve been frugal, sent our kids to college, and saved as much as we can but won’t be wealthy in retirement, which isn’t that far off. We certainly won’t be able to afford much by way of private insurance, even with the paltry voucher, so I am trying to live generously and well now, and trying to stay as healthy as possible, knowing we will likely die uninsured. I’ll try to do that early enough to suit the Ryans of the Congress, so I’ll be out of the way while they build their utopia.

These will have to sustain me as I slog through my first day back from vacation in a cold, gray world.

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Suzanne said on November 21, 2016 at 7:07 am

Deborah, that Gin & Tacos is insightful. I live here in the rust belt. He’s right. Exactly right. Instead of managing the decline, most have chosen to ignore reality and pray that life changes. It’s much like the way people in this area manage their poor health as they age; do nothing to change their lifestyle, get on the church’s prayer list, and complain about how much their meds cost.

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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 21, 2016 at 7:11 am

Gained some new worshipers Sunday for the saddest reason: the adjoining town’s Southern Baptist church told a deacon he could no longer serve, because it was known he “voted Democrat” in the election. Then someone called him and said the person who told him that “had overreacted, and he was still eligible to serve” to which he replied, that’s nice but I got the message the first time. I also learned something I’d suspected, which is that I’ve been denounced by name from that pulpit for being pro-abortion and “the pastor who does same-sex marriages.” Both of which are mild misstatements I’m not interested in correcting (I’ve attended two and said a prayer at one same-sex marriage, but haven’t been asked to preside at one as yet); he and the family that had already “come over” and I agreed, as we discussed those subjects, that for not being clearly condemnatory of either, I’m just as guilty . . . “and that’s the kind of line-drawing and separation and division I’m sick of” he said. If we’re becoming known as the church where all are welcome in this community, then maybe something good is going to come out of this rolling train-wreck of an election.

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Deborah said on November 21, 2016 at 7:41 am

Sorry, I was in a bumpy taxi on my way to the airport and all I could manage was to copy and paste the Gin and Tacos link. It’s one of the best things I’ve read that clearly and simply spells it out. It’s not hard to understand. Suzanne, the praying business may give people some solace I guess. The opiate of the masses. Sorry Jeff, but that is really sad, the dark, dark side of religion.

I’m drinking horrible coffee and tried to choke down the driest almond croissant I’ve ever eaten. Getting through TSA with my boot was fun too. Why is this always so unpleasant?

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Deborah said on November 21, 2016 at 8:18 am

Speaking of unpleasant, my husband was in his home town in Central IL this weekend, Trump country. Boy did I get an earful when he came back last night. He said the people there are operating at the top of their capacity and it’s not working, not at all. This is the town we designed the playground for, there’s a lot of poverty there since the 70s when my husband left. The decline is apparent everywhere you look.

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adrianne said on November 21, 2016 at 8:34 am

Wow, Jeff, Christian love and forgiveness are in short supply in your backyard.

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alex said on November 21, 2016 at 9:40 am

I’ve heard all sorts of people pooh-poohing about racism in the Rust Belt but I think Gin & Tacos gets it right. Obama saved the fucking auto industry. Congressmen My Pants and Stutz the Yutz both opposed the auto bailout, and so did the Tea Party douchebag who ousted Dick Lugar from his Senate seat. If they’d gotten their way, the voters really would have had something to be mad as hell about.

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Pam said on November 21, 2016 at 10:09 am

So how will Ryan’s Medicare plan be passed into law? Please someone, tell me that we have a voice in this. I can’t imagine even 1 senior citizen wanting to change Medicare in any considerable way. Ryan is a major league putz.

Dexter @ 10 – I agree wholeheartedly about the evil that was the Reagan years. The history on that man has been revised all to hell. He was the worst! Well, Nixon was pretty terrible too.

In the end, Trumpet won’t be President, he’ll be the master of ceremonies, endlessly tweeting from his NY penthouse. Somehow, not wanting to live in the WH smacks of snobbery and possibly racism.

they are predicting 50 inches of snow this winter in Chicagoland. However, this is the first year since owning our home that I have got all the yard furniture packed away and winterized the garden hose faucets, so that means we will probably only have a few snowy days. 😉

I had to decommission my FaceBook account because the news was coming so fast and furious that I couldn’t sleep. I mean, where to start? The racist cabinet appointments? destroying the ACA/Medicare/Social Security? Standing Rock — Drill Baby Drill while denying climate change? The continued discussion — as if it is something that rational people can discuss — of registering and interning Muslim citizens?

But for the moment we have a reprieve from two extortionist gold mine proposals, so I’m just going to take that and go for a dog walk.

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Jeff Borden said on November 21, 2016 at 10:49 am

Saw something on the tube last week where Ted Koppel visited a down at the mouth West Virginia town, where most of the white folks voted for Trump and most of the black folks voted for Clinton. One of the people interviewed was the unemployed mother of three –a white woman who is unmarried, btw, not that it matters– and she was sobbing about not wanting to leave her home. It was impossible not to feel sympathy for her, but the coal jobs are not coming back, no matter what the Orange King declares. So, how does one go about showing her that reality requires she and her kids move somewhere with a better job outlook? How does someone look her in the eyes and tell her that she must leave the only home she has ever known?

I couldn’t wait to get out of small-town Ohio, but man, I have plenty of friends and acquaintances who have never lived more than five miles from the hospital where they were born. Some have been lucky and had good careers. Others saw their jobs disappear, but they aren’t moving. I love Chicago more than any place I’ve ever lived, but if the shit hit the fan, I know I could leave it behind and move.

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Peter said on November 21, 2016 at 11:49 am

Jeff B., I wish I could say the same as you. My parents left the old country and came here, and even though they weren’t anywhere near their relatives (war will do that to you), it was still a great leap of faith.

I’d like to say that I would pull up stakes and leave if things got bad, but I’m more like that lady with the kids – I’d stick it out and would keep repeating to my dying day that it’s going to turn around any minute now.

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Peter said on November 21, 2016 at 11:53 am

Oh, and regarding our new fake hair overlord: Something tells me that if the tweet storm doesn’t abate I would hope for a nuclear holocaust just so I wouldn’t have to hear him anymore.

For all of the negative things about Pence (and that’s a list), he could teach his boss some manners, like how to react to criticism and to understand the difference between being heckled and being criticized.

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Bitter Scribe said on November 21, 2016 at 11:58 am

It is quite impossible to imagine Barack Obama tweeting a petulant complaint about his portrayal on “Saturday Night Live.”

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Suzanne said on November 21, 2016 at 12:05 pm

I would probably get the heck out now and move to Canada or Germany if I had more resources and any hope of a job in either one of those places. I’ve told my kids to look into their options…

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Charlotte said on November 21, 2016 at 12:13 pm

I did just that — left home. And moved all over the place — NYC, North Carolina, Colorado, California, Salt Lake City — I’ve been here 14 years which is longer than anywhere, but I’ve got to say — this garbage fire has had me looking at those attractive ads the Govt. of New Zealand keeps sending my way.

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brian stouder said on November 21, 2016 at 12:19 pm

The most striking concept I have read about in the past few years is the idea of “the mudsills” of society.

Making voters want to vote against their own economic interests can be done, if (for example) the voter is a poor white person, and you can point to an identifiable minority that needs to be reminded that THEY are the “mudsills”!

I suppose the Republicans will have invented political Plutonium if they can come up with a line that actually makes black Americans feel at-home in their party, while laying waste to some other group. Hispanics leap to mind, as the new mudsills.

I always thought the smartest thing W did* was to reach out to Southwestern immigrants, as there would be a “cultural conservatism” there already – with numbers of Hispanics being [at least nominally] Catholic).

I think that’s my take-away from the Trump election. It wasn’t about Hope or Change, but about who gets to be the mudsills of society. People who live in urban areas already know that the concept is empty, as they brush shoulders with lots of other human beings who maybe don’t dress like they do, or who go to churches which are different, or who prefer different foods….but who also get their mail and pay their bills and rake their yards and love their children, just the same as everyone.

*admittedly, the list of nominations for that honor would be a short one!

Before the election we were actually considering moving to a red state (gasp) to be closer to family. You do get more house and land for your buck and Nightingale and I have transportable careers. That said, now that the election is over, the thought of raising our kids in a red state seems like a really bad idea.

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Sherri said on November 21, 2016 at 12:28 pm

I hope the erstwhile deacon finds a new home in your congregation, Jeff(tmmo). Everything he thought he knew has been called into question, and it can be an unsettling time, to say the least.

I mentioned that I met with my priest a few days ago. He reminded me that I perhaps see these things more clearly because of my background, involvement in politics, and knowledge of history, and that not everybody even noticed what was going on. We lamented that there were some people who did, and it didn’t bother them; people who would never, ever be anything but respectful to any individual in person, but didn’t seem to translate that to the abstract.

Mostly we talked about what this means for the church as an institution. Will the church work to protect the vulnerable, or to protect the institution? He told me about an effort in the area, just getting of the ground, to partner Muslim and Episcopal and Lutheran congregations. He’s reading up on Bonhoeffer and Niemuller and the Confessing Church. When the church moves from being relatively in line with the political power of the day, to in opposition, what should they do?

Neither of us had any answers, of course, but it was a good conversation. He’s more optimistic than I am that the church will rise to the challenge, but that’s not surprising. They’re not there yet.

I’m still going to need some time before I can come back to the Eucharist table with people indifferent to the scapegoating of Trumpism.

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Julie Robinson said on November 21, 2016 at 12:37 pm

After spending most of my childhood in Illinois, I went to Indiana University and have been in this backward state ever since. Our kids have moved to Orlando, which is kinda like the Bloomington of Florida, and we’ve bought a retirement home there. So I’m a short-timer now.

For Thanksgiving this year no one wanted to host and we’re going to a restaurant. At one point in my life I would have been appalled by the idea, but now that I’m 60 and my feet hurt all the time, it sounds great. My dear departed MIL never cared how few or many, or when they came, or whether or not they brought a dish, but I don’t roll that way. Not knowing if the meal is for 15 or 40? And no one will tell you what they’re bringing? And they come an hour late and are offended you started without them? Let’s eat out!

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Julie Robinson said on November 21, 2016 at 12:46 pm

Sherri, our daughter’s church has another divide, between those who are furious at the election results, and those who think we just need to move forward. The second group includes many who did not vote for Trump. It’s uniformly along generational lines, but what surprised me is that many of the older generation, the get over it group, are only in their mid to late 60’s. In other words, the Vietnam generation, who grew up protesting on college campuses. We had a long talk about why this is but couldn’t reach any conclusions.

Has anyone else experienced this?

As an example, she put out the idea of making signs that simply say, “You Are Loved” and inviting people to put them in the yards or take to friends. It was rejected as being too political.

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Deborah said on November 21, 2016 at 1:32 pm

Julie, I’ve also wondered what happened to the boomers. People I knew back then who were quite radical (for a Lutheran college anyway) from their FaceBook pages are Fox News watchers who quote Rush etc. I haven’t friended any of them. Maybe I should, so I can ask them what changed them. I have a friend who just turned 50, she said the boomers turned out to be the greediest generation, and I don’t disagree.

I’m at the airport in Albuquerque waiting for the shuttle to Santa Fe. Then LB and I have to hit the grocery stores for Thanksgiving stuff. My husband and I are spending Thanksgiving in Abiquiu, LB chose to host a friendsgiving in Santa Fe.

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Sherri said on November 21, 2016 at 2:31 pm

I suppose “Love your neighbor as yourself” would be too political as well…

Most people are going to want to just move on. It’s more comfortable that way. You don’t have to confront any of the issues raised by the election, whether economic or racial or political. Those are just things happening to other people, I can just go on living my life the way it is and things will be fine.

Those of us who don’t believe that things will be fine have a hard time understanding why they can’t see that everything is not fine, that we’re in a very dangerous situation, but as we all can attest, that’s a stressful place to be. It demands action, it demands change, it demands resistance. The older you are, the harder it is to want to face that.

Plus, people want to keep “politics” out of things, like church, without recognizing that politics is just the way we express our values in community with others. Separation of church and state is a political choice, one that doesn’t insulate the church or members of the church from obligations to the community. That Jesus didn’t come to overthrow the Romans and establish a kingdom on earth doesn’t meant that Jesus wasn’t a political actor; he challenged the internal threat rather than the external threat.

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Dave said on November 21, 2016 at 2:50 pm

I don’t think that Trump is going to make all the Appalachian folks love him. In four years, that lady is still going to be sitting in Welch, WV, waiting for Trump to bail her out.

My father grew up in a farming community in Minford, Scioto County, OH, surrounded by all kinds of cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Nearly every single one of his generation left, very few of them, a large extended family, stayed in southern Ohio. There wasn’t much there to do, in Portsmouth, you either worked for the railroad, the steel mill, or a shoe factory. When my parents got married, they immediately moved to Columbus although, I know that if my father could have inherited the family farm that his parents sold before they told him, my life may have been much different.

Being a boomer myself, I can’t understand how any of my fellow boomers supported Trump. What happened to “Tear down the establishment”. Oh, wait, they got old and got money in their pockets and decided they wanted to keep it. For themselves. Get your own.

I’m afraid things aren’t going to be fine for anyone except those with the most conservative bent or those wearing blinders.

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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 21, 2016 at 3:15 pm

Sherri, I finally got to read the Elizabeth Catte/Sarah Jones piece digging deeper into the J.D. Vance viewpoint — I don’t agree with their insistence that he’s too easy on racism (and a few other things) but it’s a useful counterbalance. More to the point I think you shouldn’t reach too many opinions based on Vance alone until you read “The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wilkerson alongside it. One of the many tragedies she gets at is how Southern blacks were used, from the start and consistently, as strike-breakers in the north, so there was never a moment when unions in general were making a general common cause with African Americans.

What that book did for me was help understand the very different “feeling tone” I got from racism in the South Chicago/northwest Indiana of my youth, to the racist attitudes I encountered in Indianapolis and central Ohio & West Virginia. The steel country racism was bitter and angry and hostile, while the more southern, Kentucky-tinged racism once I got south of the Kankakee was weirdly genial and neighborly in a veiled sort of “you keep to your side of the line/fence/tracks and we’ll all get along fine” way. At first, I just missed it clean as it went by — I was used to a nasty, get-’em-out racial animus, and the dulcet tones of segregation and “they’re happier there” floated right by this white boy. But it excuses neither to note that when the arrival of black-skinned labor meant a direct assault on unions and union work, it set up an ongoing tension still not resolved in Rust Belt cities, and is uglier for the knowledge that those recruiting for such did so consciously planning to use African Americans as easily identifiable tokens on a gameboard, just wanting to break the union with them, and planning all the while to yank them out later or at least screen their fellow southern blacks at the gate to keep their numbers down.

Where I think Catte and Jones and I should be working together is on the topic that pushed them back from Vance: traditionalism per se isn’t going to help, but stable family structures are needed and necessary. What do non-traditional stable family systems look like? We need to be about that work of reflection and comparison, because the atomized solo-adult and kids in care system is itself an illusion of autonomy that really best serves the needs of the creative destroyers and capital hoarders, who want as small a family unit as possible so the labor they want, when they want it, where they want it to go next, is as cheap as possible. Corporate board’s cries of “fiduciary responsibility” don’t give a turkey’s wattle about family cohesiveness, stability, or children’s need for continuity and consistency in their lives.

Boy, are we going to miss the Obamas, bigly. Oh wait, that awful term… We are to miss the Obamas a LOT.

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brian stouder said on November 21, 2016 at 3:29 pm

…“The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wilkerson

A splendid, wonderful, eye-opening piece of American history

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Suzanne said on November 21, 2016 at 3:32 pm

A lot of Boomers have no idea what employment is now days. Many of them signed on at a company after high school or college and are still there, or have had only 2 jobs in their lifetimes. My sister has never typed up a resume but graduated from nursing school, walked into a job, and has stayed there for 40+ years and most of that time, she was a 5 minute drive away. So they think that people who get laid off, or get abused enough on the job to have to quit, or have their job changed so much that they can’t qualify are lazy or unreliable or whatever. A relative of mine has a master’s degree and has been out of work for 2 years. Other Boomer age relatives ask why he doesn’t try to get a job at Walmart or something, just to tide him over. I can’t seem to convince any of them that Walmart or any other retailer or something similar wouldn’t touch someone with an MBA with a 10 foot pole.
It’s way different out there than it was 30 years ago. Way, way different.

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susan said on November 21, 2016 at 3:43 pm

=This is a test.=

I tried to post a comment, twice. And it did not show up once, or twice. Probably now it will, though…twice.

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susan said on November 21, 2016 at 3:46 pm

Tried a third time. Nothing. Perhaps because it had a link?

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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 21, 2016 at 3:57 pm

Suzanne: I know a guy with an MBA who worked a year at Walmart, but he was quite emphatic that he had to lie on the app form to get the job.

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Sherri said on November 21, 2016 at 3:57 pm

Another thing I talked with my priest about was the racism I grew up with in the south. He’s from Wisconsin, and spent three years in South Carolina after seminary. Like you, it took him a while to even notice the more polite form of racism he saw there, and how invidious it was to both sides. But he could eventually see it. It’s much harder if you grow up in it, where it’s just part of the air you breathe.

White people in this country need to educate themselves a whole lot more about race, and the distorting effects it has on everything about our society. The Warmth of Other Suns is a fine place to start. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates would be another good read.

Vance generalizes from his own experience, as everybody does to some degree, but he doesn’t seem to know what he doesn’t know, and that’s what makes him frustrating.

Another thing my priest and I discussed was being in exile. Many of us liberal coastal elites come from small towns in flyover country. We did what we were supposed to do: get an education and get good jobs, that didn’t involve manual labor. But that meant leaving those small towns for many of us, and in a sense, we went into exile. We no longer fit in those small towns, or with our families. There’s frustration on both sides; everybody wanted the same thing, but not everybody was prepared for the consequences.

Any Canadians among the NN.C crowd? My wife and I are going to Spain this winter and we would love to travel incognito. When we traveled overseas during the reign of W. –could you imagine the day when he would look pretty good in comparison to the president-elect– it was a constant pain in the butt to be drawn into conversations with Europeans who hated his ass. How can we pass as Canadian? Everyone loves Canadians!

BTW, watch and be amazed while the same political party that went over everything HRC ever did with a fine-tooth comb looks the other way while the Griftet-in-Chief uses his power to feather his business bed. He’s not even in the Oval Office yet and already this looks to be one of the most corrupt administrations in our nation’s history. Damn, we are so fucked.

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susan said on November 21, 2016 at 4:47 pm

JeffB – Wear a small backpack and sew a Canadian flag on it. When I travelled in Urp ‘way back when Nixon was still in the White House getting drunk and blathering, I sewed a Greek flag on my backpack. That worked swell.

Jeff @ 45. I’ve told this relative to leave his degrees off his resume when applying for jobs that don’t require it. It’s not lying if the job description doesn’t list a particular degree as being necessary for the job. He’s always said that he worked hard for those degrees,which I know he did, and doesn’t want to leave them off but an employer like Walmart will only see the degrees as the red flag of over qualification.
It’s a crazy world. You can’t get hired for an entry level type job if you are overqualified because you won’t stay but we are told that those jobs should not pay better because they are meant to be springboards to better employment. “Should I stay or should I go?”

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Judybusy said on November 21, 2016 at 5:03 pm

That’s so different than what I’ve experienced traveling abroad. I have to say, I don’t get asked much what my nationality is, but I always say I’m from the states. I believe part of my role as a traveler is to reassure others that we’re not all batshit crazy!

Another great resource for learning about race, class and lesbian identity is This Bridge Called my Back writings by radical women of color. It’s a collection of essays and poetry, published in the early 80s. Also, the Netflix documentary “13th” has been getting great reviews. I will have to steel myself to watch it.There’s just so much overwhelming news right now.

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Sherri said on November 21, 2016 at 5:05 pm

If Trump is merely the most corrupt President we’ve ever had, we’ll be lucky. I’m more concerned about the destabilizing effects on the world his election presents. In Trump’s world, there are winners and losers. In the real world, winners and losers are dangerous.

When we traveled in Europe during the Bush years, we wore pins on our backpacks that said BUSH IS NOT MY PRESIDENT. That seemed to smooth things over. Of course, that was when we thought he was the absolute worst of America. It seems like every time the R’s win they up the level of crazy exponentially.

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Snarkworth said on November 21, 2016 at 5:27 pm

Jeff Borden, I just got back from southern Spain, where people were warm and welcoming despite our obvious nationality. They mostly agree with us, so there’s a comaraderie. When in doubt, you can always shout, “¡No votamos por el! (We didn’t vote for him!)”

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Dexter said on November 21, 2016 at 5:32 pm

If you can access cable programming somehow, take some time and watch the Vice/Viceland Network show “Payday”. It shows how up-and-coming folks , no matter what paths they choose, have hard times making the rent and buying groceries and making choices that hopefully keep them healthy so they don’t have to visit ERs or doctors very often. So many struggling in this land o’plenty. No working folk can live in Manhattan , and now Brooklyn rents have forced working class people further out into Queens. Astoria and Long Island City are also getting trendy and forcing people further and further away from Manhattan. I think if I was young and saw this trend I would simply leave the entire Northeast forever. The sticks ain’t no place to be either, though. Trust me on that one. All three of our daughters got the hell out of Bryan, Ohio as soon as they had wings. One lives in Las Vegas, Nevada…one is moving shortly from Toledo to Miami, Florida, and one is happily entrenched in Columbus, Ohio. I’ll be packing up dogs and driving to Columbus for turkey in a couple days.

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Jolene said on November 21, 2016 at 5:46 pm

Speaking of traveling in Spain, what’s up with our friend from Sacramento? Are you out there, MichaelG?

Pam @22. Ryan will put a cut-off age for the Medicare massacre at 50, 55, 60, or whatever the highest age he thinks he can get away with and get as many of the fuck you, I’ve got mine people as he thinks he needs. It’s a generation that’s been pulling up ladders since they reached adulthood, so they shouldn’t be hard to buy off.

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Deborah said on November 21, 2016 at 6:31 pm

I think maybe because of the color of my hair and my tallness I’ve often been mistaken for German or Scandinavian while traveling in Europe. Believe me I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut when that happens so they don’t find out I’m from the US.

I can be prejudiced about people from Texas, sorry not proud of it, I lived there for 8 years after I graduated from college, Little Bird was born there. I was so happy to get out of there when we finally did. Texans are not well liked in Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico in general. I do know some wonderful Texans so it’s really not fair but it’s so easy to fall into when someone brings it up. The reason I bring this up about Texans is that’s what I always think Europeans think about us in the US. It’s a feeling of entitlement that grates on people. I also often think that’s what people in small town America think of liberal city folk.

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Sherri said on November 21, 2016 at 7:38 pm

The corruption. The instability. The nutcases he’s surrounding himself with. Talking to world leaders without even consulting with State or Defense, just Ivanka and Jared. He has no coherent foreign policy, and nobody in his inner circle does either. Sure, maybe he names Romney SoS, but that doesn’t mean he’ll give him any power or listen to him.